


Jaded Seas

by kittmoon



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Fights and Conflict, Gen, Hateno Village, Link has a cool older sister though, Link learning to fight, Link pulling the Master Sword, Pre-Calamity, Slight Canon Divergence, Some monsters kinda get ruptured, castle town - Freeform, family life, family pressure, just in the way he pulls the sword, pretty angsty, some violence (via practice combat)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27138464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittmoon/pseuds/kittmoon
Summary: Link grew up hearing of the legends, yes, but what kid hadn’t been raised that way? He never understood why it was such a big deal to his family, that he attempt to pull the Master Sword in Castle Town. Hundreds had tried, and they had all failed. So why?Then there’s their want for him to become a knight, like the rest of the men in his family. It sounds okay, he supposes, after he’s heard it from them so many times. Soon, it becomes clear that the attempt to pull the Master Sword will become the “pinnacle of his young life”, in theory. But why, if the mere attempt is what’s important to everyone else?Naturally, those questions cease to matter when Link manages to actually pull the damn thing.Fuckquickly becomes the appropriate word, he realizes.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 63





	1. Ice and Steel

**Author's Note:**

> Y’all I am thrilled to be posting the first chapter of this. You can blame this fic for me stopping Linktober halfway through - fun fact, this fic was originally going to be a oneshot for “Weapon” (Day 16). It was only meant to be a few hundred words but alas it overtook me (as a lot of fics tend to do). Special thanks to my s/o for convincing me to keep writing these things even though I had no confidence in them. Glad I listened, or else this would’ve never become as long as it did. :)

At seven years old, Link received his first blade. 

He’d been given it as a Winter Equinox present, but Link’s initial holiday joy dissipated when he unfolded the waxen-paper package. Gently unfurling the silk wrap, Link let the steel dagger fall easily into his hand. _This is a knife._

He’d uneasily suspected for a long time that he would get this as a present. His father, uncle, and grandfather had all asked him if he would “like to learn some special skills”, but Link knew what that meant. 

“Fighting?” He’d asked. “Killing people?”

“No, no,” his uncle had said. “Just how to be a loyal knight. Sounds pretty cool, right?”

Link wasn’t sure about that, and he’d found his guess proven right when he’d eavesdropped on his parents later, the two of them sitting together by the fire. Squatting on the upper steps, he liked to think he was as silent as a mouse. 

“He has to start learning now, or else he’ll never have a fraction of a chance of joining the order,” came his father’s uncertain timbre. 

His mother’s voice was quieter, dulled by the crackling flames. Link heard something along the lines of, “Prepping him for the sword...”

“ _That?_ ” His father hissed.

Link heard her this time. “Don’t pretend you don’t have your hopes.” 

Link didn’t know what that was about, but from that day forward, the questions had persisted. 

“Wouldn’t you like to become a brave knight, Link?” His grandfather would ask, the creaking of his rocking chair becoming a steady rhythm as he smoked a long pipe. Link’s father would show him some of his older weapons, regaling Link with stories from when they were used, though now they were stacked in a wooden cabinet by the front door. Link never opened the cabinet, though his father had said that he was allowed to. 

And now they were here, all sitting under the evergreen tree that was decorated with spherical clay ornaments. Link and his older sister had crafted the ornaments together and had painted them with berry juice and pigments - there were the standard red-and gold ones, and even a few white orbs that looked like muted pearls. He’d had much more fun doing that than he was currently having, holding this knife.

His mother and father seemed pleasantly surprised by the dagger in his hands, as if they hadn’t packaged it themselves, but Link knew better. So did his sister, it seemed, as she sat across from him on her knees, hands clasped together, lips pursed, glaring at the weapon in his hands. 

“Why did you get him a knife?” She asked, her tone dry. “Link‘s never shown interest—“

“ _Talia._ ” His mother hissed, and his sister stood, angry. Link wasn’t sure why his sister was this mad, although he could see why she wasn’t happy about it. She, at least, seemed to recognize Link’s actual interests. 

Talia huffed and made to walk out of the house, and the family let her. 

“She’s sixteen,” Link’s aunt murmured. She was a woman who rarely spoke, and she shared their mother’s blue eyes and thin lips. Right now they were pressed together like Talia’s had been. “If she wants to freeze in the snow that’s up to her.” 

“Indeed,” Link’s grandfather murmured wistfully.

The house was silent for a moment, before Link said, “Thank you for my present.”

“You’re welcome, love,” his mother smiled. It was a warm smile, filled with hope, and it made Link feel somewhat at ease. That did not last long. 

—:::—

Link noticed, after a while, that the dagger was extremely well-made. His parents must have paid a significant amount of rupees for it. The wooden hilt was carved with intricately-designed wording, but Link had trouble trying to read it. He’d thought about asking Talia what it said, but he hesitated to bring it up with her. She seemed to be in an icy mood, ever since she’d come back to the house that evening, hours after she’d left. 

“Where have you been?” Their father asked pointedly. 

“Naki’s house. Her mother had a big fireplace,” Talia responded coolly.

“I can’t believe you left us on Winter Equinox,” their mother scolded, putting her hands on her hips in the way she always did when she felt personally slighted. 

“Clearly what I do isn’t any of your concern.” 

Talia told Link, later, “You don’t have to use that if you don’t want to.”

He blinked down at the knife in his hands. His parents seemed to like it when he carried it around with him, so he’d started to do it more often to avoid the questions that would come if he didn’t. “It’s a quality knife,” he said to her. _Quality knife_ was what his father had called it, and Link couldn’t exactly argue with that. It must have meant something positive. 

Talia rolled her eyes. “You know what they’ll make you do.” 

Link didn’t actually know, so he furrowed his brow, thinking. “...Something about a sword?” He murmured, remembering the night he had listened in, sitting on the steps. 

For a moment Talia looked just as confused as he felt. “I imagine they’ll have you use one at some point, sure—“ Then her eyes - brown, like their father’s - suddenly went very wide. “Oh, _hell_ ,” she hissed. 

“What? What?” Link asked, puzzled as his sister suddenly stood, with the same abruptness as that holiday morning when she had trompped out into the fresh snow. 

“I need you to wait here,” she told him. They had been sitting on his bed together, but now she was walking away from him and down the steps. 

The house was big, able to suit Link’s entire family. He and Talia were the only children, as their aunt and uncle never had any themselves. As it happened, everyone was inside the house today - and everyone heard the following argument. 

Link stayed cross-legged on the bed like he had been told. 

“You’re breeding him for the Sword!” Talia spat, her tone as accusatory as she could likely have managed. “The Master Sword. That’s what it is. You want him to pull it.”

There was a beat of silence that lasted a microsecond too long. 

“What are you talking about?” Their mother asked, quietly. Calmly. The voice that she used when she was employing a saccharine caution. 

“I’m not stupid,” Talia said. “The Master Sword. You’re training him this early so that he can attempt to pull the Master Sword _I’m not stupid—_ ”

“That’s none of your business, last I checked,” their uncle muttered loudly, inserting himself into the conversation. 

“Oh _please,_ ” Talia leered. Link wasn’t sure if he was scared or thrilled to hear his sister speak this way. “You attempted it, Father attempted it, Grandfather attempted it. You all failed.” 

“So did the majority of the population!” Their mother said defensively. “They just gave it a shot, like everyone else—“

“Oh, giving it a _shot_ , is that what you call obsessively researching the legends, using half of the family’s savings to send our sons to Castle Town, constantly fantasizing about the total revival of—“ 

“Enough!” Their aunt shrieked. “We have a right to try. The King clearly stated that everyone in Hyrule has that right—“

“Of course, as long as a hefty fee is paid!” Talia yelled. 

“If we were as committed as you claim, your aunt and I would have taken to trying as well,” came their mother’s voice, low and falsely tough. 

Talia laughed oddly, unevenly, spitefully. “You and Aunt Maya would never _dare_ touch a sword. You’re too busy polishing the silverware, daydreaming of knights you wish were on-duty...” 

There was a womanly gasp, incredibly sharp (perhaps from their aunt, who was always a bit shrill). Even Link knew what Talia had said was a low-blow, considering both Uncle Fenn and their father had been off-duty for some time. Link instinctively curled himself into a tighter ball, pulling his knees to his chest, still unsure of his comfort level.

“Link’s only purpose is not to just pull a damn sword,” came their grandfather’s voice, stern and even, apparently unwilling to fall into _that_ particular thorn bush. 

“You won’t even let him explore anything else he may want to do.” Talia said, her voice for the first time becoming tinged with sorrow. “You’re just expecting him to go into the military, like the rest of you. You’re acting like he has no other choice! Don’t pretend that once he turns twelve you won’t cart him straight to Castle Town.” 

“Don’t tell us how to raise our son,” their mother hissed. Link could hear the antsy tone of her voice - she wasn’t one for conflict. 

“He’s my _brother!_ I’m essentially another adult in his life—“

Link didn’t remember much more. There were a lot of loud voices, and Link was tired, so he dipped himself under his thick winter blanket. It was quite cozy underneath it, with the wool keeping the warmth from escaping. He fell asleep surprisingly easily, but as he did so he clutched the knife to his chest, both hands wrapped around the hilt. Perhaps if he treated the knife as his and only his (as it theoretically was), then no one could tell him how to wield it.

—:::—

The next afternoon, Link’s mother walked up to him carefully. He was sitting by the pond outside, with several differently-colored apples balanced on a tree stump. 

“What are you doing?” She asked him. Her voice was warm again, and Link preferred that voice, so he turned to his mother and told her contentedly, “I’m trying different apples - to see if they taste different.” 

His mother’s eyes widened, but she didn’t seem mad. “Is this what you like to do?” 

Link nodded. “Talia and I did this last week with wildberries. The green ones taste really sour, but the yellow ones taste even sweeter than the red ones,” he explained. “Talia said it was an ex-per-uh-ment.” His tongue tumbled over the new word, and he wondered if he pronounced it correctly. 

“I see.” 

“She said that she would ask Aunt Maya if we could use her cooking pot and she said we could make a pie.” Link was very excited at this prospect, as he rarely got a chance to cook, let alone with only Talia. 

“Well, I can definitely ask Aunt Maya about the pot. I’m sure she’ll say yes,” his mother said. Then her eyes drifted to the knife, currently laid upon the stump. “Are you cutting fruit with that?” 

Link hesitated to answer, suddenly almost positive that he wasn’t allowed to, but his silence seemed to be enough of an answer. 

She sighed. “That’s not a slicing knife, Link.” She seemed a little annoyed now. 

“...Sorry,” Link murmured, because he wasn’t sure what else he could say. 

His mother sighed again. “It’s okay,” she said, seemingly on autopilot, and then she turned and left him at the pond. 

It was cold out. Link wondered when his mother would ask his aunt about the cooking pot - a warm slice of pie definitely would be good to eat. 

He never heard about the cooking pot, however. 

—:::—

The following summer, Link began his training. He suspected that his family had waited for a little while, allowing some buffer time in response to Talia’s accusations. Link was eight years old now, and he could deduce such things. 

They started out small. The family owned a standard training dummy, but it was meant for adults, so they bought a stone stool in the village for Link to stand on as he practiced his motions at eye-level with the dummy. 

It didn’t look humanoid - rather, it was a simple cylinder, stitching filled with hay, reaching its full height at six feet off the ground (according to his uncle). Link was taught to thrust at it quickly, with up-close, simple stabs. Whenever he cut it well  
enough that some hay spilled out, his father would laugh, clapping him on the back. “That’s right! That’s how you do it.” Link would smile, though it made him a bit uncomfortable. He was eight now, and therefore knew that hay represented blood from an enemy. He was glad that he knew this - it made him feel slightly more immune to sugar-coating. 

_Sugar-coating_ is what Talia called his lessons. She barely spoke to the adults now, unless when strictly necessary. “Pass the salt,” she would say, not, “Excuse me, Uncle Fenn, would you please pass the salt,” as Link was taught to request. 

She and Link would still do their experiments, though (Link was now fluent when pronouncing the word). They never got a proper cooking pot, but Talia was able to purchase a substitute, a small iron box with a lid that could be put over a fire to cook “tiny foods”. So far, they had only made cookies and one baked apple that they ate together. Link had concluded, though his experiment that past winter, that the dark red apples tasted the sweetest, but the lighter-red apples were the best to bake, as they didn’t get too disgustingly mushy. 

Talia never asked him about his training. She would remark on it from time to time, usually with scorn, but she didn’t ask him what he thought. She seemed to know, as he did, that his lessons were just a part of life now. And so they ate their apples.


	2. Autumn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uploading schedule 2 for 2 so far huh

Life for Link escalated towards the end of the summer. 

The anniversary of the Queen’s death was approaching, and all current knights of the order (both on and off-duty) were highly encouraged to attend the memorial in Castle Town. There was an unspoken expectation that both Link’s uncle and father would prepare to travel. 

Link was outside with the dummy, practicing his horizontal pivoting (without being told to, as was decidedly encouraged), when Link’s father and grandfather walked outside to talk to him. 

“Would you like to go with your father and Uncle Fenn to Castle Town?” His grandfather asked, his eyes scanning Link’s combative posture. 

Link paused his movements to consider this. He supposed he should have expected it. “Am I allowed to? I’m not a knight.” 

“Not yet. And of course you are,” his father said, smiling softly. “Anyone can attend the memorial. But your uncle and I definitely need to go, and you’ve never been to Castle Town.”

Link wanted to remark that he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to go to Castle Town to begin with, but there was no good reason to say it, so he didn’t. “I guess I could go,” he replied simply.

“Excellent!” Exclaimed just father and grandfather at the same time. Then they laughed. Link laughed too, because it was kind of funny. 

The next week, they took two horses and three satchels, packing up everything with no delays, and set off for Central Hyrule. Talia smiled as they left, waving. She told Link, when the two of them had a moment alone, that he didn’t need to worry about any expectations. “Knight or not, Castle Town is still really exciting. I went once with Naki’s family, for the Farore Festival, and it’s a busy place, but you’ll love it. Just remember to have fun.” That made Link feel better about going. 

Leaving Hateno village, they met up with another off-duty knight who was also traveling to Castle Town. It was a woman named Kyata, and her hair was a deep, velvety green, like her eyes. Link had never met her before, but his father and uncle treated her with familiarity, and they ended up traveling with her the entire way there. 

Link had never seen a woman carry themselves the way Kyata did, with Talia perhaps being an exception. The women in his life, including his late grandmother, had always seemed reactionary, shrinking themselves smaller, but willingly so. They drifted, following men, following the wind, steady but muted. Talia wasn’t like that, carrying herself wherever she pleased, but Kyata seemed to be even more mature, with more confidence, more dignity than Talia probably felt she had the right to have. She spoke eloquently and clearly, looking people in the eye. Nothing she said ever felt like a suggestion, and she walked briskly, as though she didn’t have time to be annoyed at everything. Link found that he liked her quite a bit - he would have to tell Talia about her when he got home. 

Kyata was kind to Link. She taught him special cooking recipes, though she seemed to know that Link wasn’t really absorbing it, as he was too fascinated and just watched her, nodding along excitedly. Kyata also taught him specific things as they traveled, her own little lessons. She told him things factually - “Bees get mad if you go near their hive.” “Tomatoes need to be baked evenly on all sides to become jammy in the middle.” “Take the time to soothe your mount - that’s the only way it will know how you truly feel.” 

Apparently, she had begun serving at the same time as Link’s uncle. “Fenn and I used to be stationed in Hebra,” she said. Hebra was very far away, Link knew, and he also knew that it was very cold. “We fought side-by-side for years, but it was only when we were both put off-duty that we even realized we both came from Hateno.”

“That’s interesting,” Link said, as he had learned to say when someone talked to him about new things. 

—:::—

Castle Town was like nothing Link had ever experienced. It was bustling, noisy, and had a lot of strange smells. Voices were coming from all directions, echoes carrying over bright-blue city roofs. The streets were paved with stone, and Link hadn’t seen that before either. His shoes made _click-clack_ sounds when he walked, though it wasn’t as loud as the sound of the horse’s hooves. 

His father’s mood seemed to brighten considerably once they entered the town’s gates, and soon he and Uncle Fenn were bantering and whistling and laughing. Kyata, much to Link’s subtle dismay, left them at the gate, saying that she had family on the western side of town that she wanted to visit. They all bade her farewell, and she and her horse _click-clacked_ away. 

They spent the night in an inn near the center of the city. There was talk of the Queen everywhere, how she died. Apparently this happened every year, according to his uncle. “People talk about it excessively. It’s a weirdly popular subject this time of year,” he said. 

Link found this strange, especially when he heard words like “assassination,” and “Yiga Clan”. He didn’t know what these words meant, and he hesitated to ask. 

Link went to bed that night, restlessly. He slept in the same bed as his father, both his uncle and his father snoring loudly after a long day. He still had his knife with him, but tonight, instead of leaving it with his clothes, he held it close to his chest, secretly. He was learning to feel safe with it, and something about this visit to Castle Town made him feel like he felt under the wool blanket the previous winter - only he could use this weapon. Only _he_ could use this weapon. 

—:::—

The Queen’s memorial was grand, but soft and hushed. 

She had died two years ago, the King said, in his speech that he gave. Link was sat on his father’s shoulders so he could see better.

She was the brightest light, the King said also, and Link noticed that “assassination” and “Yiga Clan” weren’t mentioned. 

Then, the King stated that his daughter, the Princess, would say a prayer in honor of her mother the Queen. A blessing from Hylia. 

Link had never seen the Princess before that day - he’d never seen the King either, but the Princess somehow struck a bigger chord within him. She walked, calmly in a white gown, and stood tall at the edge of the stage. Her hair was long and full and very yellow, a pretty yellow, and her eyes were incredibly blue, maybe as blue as his mother’s. Link blushed. Everyone said that the Princess was beautiful, and he could bashfully see why. 

When she spoke, it was a in a quiet voice, though that didn’t make her less heard. With tones like a small sparrow, she recited her prayer in perfect pronunciation, but Link was barely paying attention to its contents, more absorbed by its feeling than anything else. Her voice held a sort of timid sadness that Link had never heard before. 

It was a somber day. As expected.

—:::—

Over the next few years, Link accompanied his father and uncle on any and all excursions to Castle Town, of which there were approximately three a year. It was expensive, definitely too expensive, for the three of them to travel, but the cost of it was never mentioned at home. The idea of _traveling to Castle Town_ seemed to be almost a sacred subject. Any issue was waved away. 

Every year, when they attended the Queen’s memorial, the “little Princess” always recited the same prayer. Link knew a few lines of it by now: “May she rest in quiet joy and celebrate the life she lived,” the Princess would say. “May Hylia keep the ember of her glowing soul close to her bosom, protecting it thusly as she did in life...” 

The Princess’s face never seemed to change. By the end of her prayer, even if Link hadn’t fully processed it, he found himself mourning with her. Once, she looked his way, her turquoise irises skittering across the many expectant faces, and Link did everything in his power to believe she was looking at him.

By the time Link was ten, he had shifted to training efficiently with a short sword, though he held onto his knife, always keeping it at his belt. Talia sometimes came to watch him, and occasionally she would compliment him on his form. She seemed to have melted away her own disdain for it, though her attitude towards the rest of the family remained as icy as ever. 

At this point, Link’s future career as a knight was talked about frequently. Talia never said a word during these conversations, and the adults entirely ignored her silence. As Link grew older, he was asked for his opinion on the matter more and more, though he could tell they just expected his agreement. He gave it, because what else could he do? He supposed being a knight “wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” he would say. This seemed to please his parents, who would laugh and pat him on the head, even though he was getting a little old for that. 

He made it his mission to continue cooking with Talia. It seemed to be the only thing that brought either of them proper joy recently, so he began to suggest things that he found out of Aunt Maya’s cookbook. They still only used the iron box, mostly because Link was still weary of Aunt Maya and her proper pot, so he and Talia became engaged in extensive conversations about how to shrink down recipes to make them cookable in the box. She was twenty now, practically a woman, and Link was overjoyed that she was still interested in cooking with him. Talia had a notebook that she kept, detailing everything. 

“The shortbread cookies were a success, I think,” she said one day, when the sun was at its highest arc in the blue summer sky. 

“Yeah, but I also liked those mini apple cakes,” Link said. Out of his satchel, he pulled out a green and red apple. “I think we should try making them with both red and green apples.”

Talia raised an eyebrow. “That would be interesting.” 

“Yeah.” 

Talia took the green apple from his hands, then scrunched her eyes and took a gaping chomp out of the fruit. 

Link laughed ecstatically at Talia’s face, which contorted even tighter as she took in the sour taste. “Very interesting,” she bit out, and that made Link laugh even louder. 

—:::—

Things were going alright until Aunt Maya became ill. 

It was little at first, the coughing. She would wave it away silently and continue with her stitching or her polishing of porcelain cups, but she soon became bedridden with respiratory issues. Uncle Fenn and Link’s mother were at her bedside constantly, wearing cloth masks for protection in case it was contagious. 

Evidently they weren’t the only household affected. His father would come home telling tales of Young Mako and Mr. Irok and The Gentleman Who Owned The Inn and Naki’s mother, all of whom were apparently sick. It was cold season, though this seemed to be more serious. 

It got worse when the family heard that Naki’s mother passed away. Talia immediately left, traversing into the village to console her friend. However, at this news, the cloud over the family grew heavier. Aunt Maya was younger than Naki’s mother had been, though perhaps by just a hair. Who knew what would happen. 

The family waited anxiously for months, but as autumn came to a close, Aunt Maya’s illness began to dissipate. It started slow, but then the sickness rushed to an unglamorous finish, leaving her body for good. After she recovered, the family chanced a few strolls into the village, and they learned then that there had been a few other deaths. 

There was a quiet memorial two weeks after Aunt Maya’s recovery - eleven dead in total throughout the village. One of them was Kyata, Link discovered, and as his father and uncle murmured quiet “if only’s”, Link stood there numb as her name was called and as eulogies were given. There was an old woman with white-and-green hair who sat in the crowd, looking as stunned as Link felt. _But she must have known for a long time,_ Link thought, wondering if she was Kyata’s mother. 

Still, Hateno continued through as it always did. Aunt Maya certainly moved on, going back to her habit of rarely commenting on matters and staring down the children with birdlike eyes. The family had more important things to worry about, though, as Link would be turning twelve soon, and since twelve was the minimum age for attempting to pull the Master Sword, then shouldn’t we think about sending him there? That would indeed be expensive, considering the fee and payments for horses, firewood, food...

Link had learned to tune out the majority of this. Talia seemed to sense it, and she made several attempts to talk to him about other things, anything other than the Sword. Link knew the legend by now - sometimes the family read their copy of the famous epic aloud by the fire, and it would drag on for hours. This whole “hero business”. 

“I can’t say I’m a fan,” Link said dryly. He’d begun using a more sarcastic tone of voice around her, and she tended to respond in kind. 

Talia tutted. “Well of course you’re not. It’s all bullshit,” she said. She had begun using words like _bullshit_ and _cuntwad_ and _horse-fucker_ around him, and though he didn’t always know what they meant, exactly, he knew they were bad words, used to discuss things that people rarely had polite words for.

“Frankly I don’t think you should go at all,” she said. “They’re not doing it because they think you’ll be able to pull it, I just think that they’re doing it so that they can say that all of their sons have gone and tried.”

“Maybe,” Link murmured. “It makes me uncomfortable that they would pay that much money for me to basically do nothing.” 

“It’s all part of the honor,” Talia said. She was writing in their notebook, or at least she was positioned to, but her thoughts were apparently too distracting. “It’s the idea of having attempted it that makes jaws drop.”

“Really?” 

“You bet.”

“Ugh.”

“Yeah.”

The two of them sat still for a while. Link wasn’t sure what Talia was thinking about, but he found himself wondering why it was still such a big deal to attempt to pull the Master Sword. He knew a good amount now about the legends, especially about the Ancient Hero, who along with the Ancient Princess had saved all of Hyrule from the Calamity’s destruction. This had been ages ago.

Was it just the ability to pay the fee that coated those who attempted it with a sheen of honor? _Maybe,_ thought Link, although there were other ways to brag about one’s yearly income. Perhaps it was the confidence, the way each person believed it was they who could shoulder the weight of the Hero. Or, even still, maybe the honor of it came from simply feeling a call to try. 

Link bit his lip. _It could really just be the money,_ he thought dully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, as always. next update will be on Thursday!


	3. Dreamsea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit gets real in this one guys, yikes.

The day Link turned twelve, it was the beginning of summer, and the entire family celebrated. For some reason, Link was put through more extensive training that day, made to practice even more meticulously with the short sword. He still independently practiced his knife skills, more for absent-minded comfort than anything else. That evening the entire family gathered to have a feast of curry, rice, and wild mushrooms, some of Link’s favorite foods, but he couldn’t seem to properly enjoy any of it. Even Talia got lost in it a little, eating her fill and smiling at him loosely. He couldn’t explain it - something was plaguing him in the back of his mind. It felt like he was supposed to remember something.

That night, he had an array of different dreams, though they all felt like the same one. He experienced them in different states of wakefulness - there were flashes of green, flashes blue, flashes of pink. There were voices, questions, asking him what to do. Asking him when he would do it. _It?_ He didn’t remember there ever being an “it” to do. There was a great storm, a tempest, and he was rolling in it, drowning in it, and though Link was on solid ground, he could feel himself sinking. There was a spirit, though her name was murky. She told him that he was a Champion, _a Hero, Link,_ and that they would reunite soon. 

Normally with dreams like this, Link felt incredibly confused. Except this time, when he woke up in the early hours of the morning, sweaty and shocked, he somehow knew exactly what it had all meant. 

—:::—

Talia was coughing a bit, distractingly so. Link was packing his satchel for the upcoming journey to Central Hyrule. 

“Are you sick?” He wasted no time in asking this. 

She coughed again, scratchy and unhinged. “Probably,” she answered. 

“Why the fuck should I go then, if you’re sick?” Link asked pointedly, dropping his satchel. 

“I don’t know,” she said.

—:::—

They arrived in Castle Town as the autumn leaves began to fall. Link felt queasy, too many thoughts racing through his mind. He could still feel the knife resting against his thigh, at least - its wooden hilt over time had become worn and scratched. By now, Link could read what was carved in cursive: _Thunderborn._

“I’m not sure what it means,” his father had told him, when Link had asked about it. “I bought the knife from a woodworking monk in Faron.” 

“There are monks in Faron?” 

“Traveling dragon monks, yes. Haven’t you seen them around?” 

“No.” 

His father shrugged. “They handed me the knife and insisted I take it for free. They said that it was destiny that I gift it to my eldest son...your birthday was close enough.” 

Link found this answer surprisingly unsatisfying, though he chose not to engage any further. He had his own horse to look after now, after all - his grandfather had insisted that they buy three horses as opposed to the normal two - and Link was reciting in his mind what Kyata had taught him, years ago now. “Soothe your mount,” he murmured to himself, threading his fingers through the horse’s mane and stroking it gently. When the horse gave an appreciative huff, Link’s heart soared, if only briefly. At least the horse didn’t seem to catch on to Link’s nervousness. 

Traversing into town was the same as it had always been - the noises, the smells, the crowded air. As usual, Link’s father and Uncle Fenn began their grins and giggles, waving to strangers and holding the illusion of familiarity close to their chests. 

They stayed in the same inn as normal, but Link’s father and uncle went down to the bar for drinks and left Link to his own devices. By this time in the evening, Link’s mind had gone from frustrated to weirdly blank, as though the dreamsea’s waves had calmed since that hazy nighttime storm. He spent the next hour taking his knife and divvying notches in the wooden wall, aimlessly, though still counting.

He practiced his formations, for a while after that, then listened to the men downstairs through the window, cheering and gulping and dancing and hollering. Uncle Fenn came back up to the room to grab a pouch of rupees, one that Aunt Maya has said was specifically for a bracelet she had wanted him to buy in the eastern market. He waved drunkenly at Link on his way out. Link drank a cup of water - slowly, unfeeling, and then went to bed. 

—:::—

The Master Sword’s pedestal was on castle grounds. One had to make an appointment with the King to attempt to draw the sword - only ten citizens a year were accepted (it was a sacred business, of course). The family’s knightley record gave them a slight edge, Link’s father had whispered. 

It was a slow morning. On days where people attempted to pull the sword - “statures” is what they were colloquially called - _a stature is happening today_ \- people gathered outside of the castle’s gates in anticipation. Not the entire city, said Uncle Fenn, just those who hopped to finally get a Champion. Those who payed attention to the legends. 

Of course, that made it sound like it was a small number of people - this assumption was untrue. There were maybe a hundred people outside the gates, all looking towards the three of them, clapping excitedly. Link’s father and uncle walked him up to the castle’s gate, grinning widely at those they pretended to know. Link’s eyes remained on the cobbled stone of the street, moving his feet faster, hoping to get to the gate quicker than they could lay their beady eyes upon him. He chanced a glance upward and made eye contact with a tall, scraggly man with a white beard, who grinned toothily at Link, giving him two thumbs-up. Link, red-faced, immediately looked back down. 

They stood outside the iron doors for perhaps just a few minutes, though it felt like an eternity, with the crowd murmuring back and forth. 

The doors did eventually open - when they did, there were more cheers, bigger ones - and several men in long blue robes stepped into the common area. Like Link, they didn’t seem thrilled about the whole ordeal, though there was a hint of boredom in their lazy gazes. 

The shortest of them strode forward - his blue robe was lined with cream and gold silks - and held out a rolled piece of parchment in front of himself. Unfurling it, he read aloud in a stuffy voice, “His Majesty King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule requests the audience of--” He halted suddenly, and his eyes drifted off the paper and past it, down to Link’s small frame. “You must be Link,” he said. A quiet, quippy voice in Link’s mind pipped, _Do you see anyone else presented here, cuntwad?_ He blinked several times before nodding in acknowledgement. “Yes.”

Suddenly Link was being herded forward. He could hear his father behind him: “Good luck, Link!” he called. He whipped his head around, not expecting to go onto castle grounds alone. A heavy stone of nausea settled in his stomach. He considered throwing a glare towards his father and Uncle Fenn, who stood amongst the crowd, grinning like idiots, but he decided against it and turned his head to look forward. This was probably a blessing in disguise...he couldn’t imagine trying to pull the Master Sword with his father and uncle goading him like schoolchildren. 

The men in the blue robes said nothing, but walked forward with such confidence that Link felt it inappropriate to do anything other than follow them. He heard the iron doors close behind him as they rounded the stone path, but the whooping of the crowd could be heard over the castle walls.

Link had never seen the castle up close, not to mention the inside of it. He was afraid to look up, afraid of the enormity of it, afraid of taking it all in too fast. He walked a long time up a hill before being led inside a small door, bolted to the stone wall of the excavated cliffside. The inside hallway was a built combination of stone and complicated woodwork, with iron torches lining the walls. The floor was also stone, and the men’s leather shoes _click-clacked_ as they led Link around another corner. It reminded Link of Kyata’s horse, all those years ago, tromping through the Castle Town streets. 

Link followed them through what seemed to be a continuous tunnel, with the occasional carpeted set of stairs that brought them up a story or two. Occasionally Link would see a door, or a forked hallway, paths leading to other recesses and depths of the enormous castle, but the men seemed to know exactly where to go. Link’s legs were starting to tire, though the men did not stop walking, nor did they speak to Link. He thought of Talia, who would have made the trek a little less dreadful. He wondered if she was bedridden, like Aunt Maya had been the previous autumn.

After several long minutes, they turned again, and Link saw light at the end of a passageway. Halfway down the corridor stood two castle guards (which is what they must be, Link figured), each adorned with blue-and-gold tunics. Link noticed, rather suddenly, that these two guards were Sheikah men. Their silver hair tied up in buns, they wore the castle’s emblem, seemingly with a sort of pride, or at least seriousness. They both held long spears with curled silver sharpened at the ends. Regarding Link and the men in blue with weary eyes, they raised their weapons, allowing them to pass. For the first time, one of the robed men spoke to Link. His voice was surprisingly gentle. “This is the subgarden, accessed only by high-ranking members of Hyrule Castle.”

Link saw what he meant by “subgarden”. As they stepped into the sun, Link saw that they were effectively in a giant hole. They stood in a wide, walled garden, the height of which appeared impossible to fathom. There was no ceiling - no real way to get in, it seemed, other than through the twisted stone corridors. The garden held a lot of variety indeed, though it didn’t appear to be controlled by any means. Whorls of ivy and wisteria crawled up the stone walls, creeping towards the streams of sunlight. Bright yellow buttercups dotted the lush green grass. There were different trees that seemed to grow wildly here - pear trees, cherry blossoms, magnolia trees - and a few larger trees with thicker trunks that Link couldn’t name. There was a semblance of a stone walkway, with blue-and-white flowers outspringing along the sides of it. At the center of the garden, of course--

“That is, naturally, the Master Sword,” another of the men said. He seemed pleased to share this news, as though he was the only one who knew it. 

The second Link’s eyes grazed the blade, positioned elegantly, enticingly, within the stone pedestal, it’s hilt a perfect blue, Link heard it. The voice seemed to reach his soul, too deeply, more firmly than Link thought possible. 

_”Link.”_

Link stood entirely still. 

_”You can hear me.”_

In his mind, the ocean storm rumbled lowly. He could feel the clouds of dark, curling around his spirit. 

_”Can you hear me, Link?”_ The voice asked. It was whispering.

 _I can,_ Link thought. _I don’t want to._

He heard another voice, but this time it was material. “Attention,” said the man adorned with the golden silks. “The Princess has arrived.”

Link turned. Suddenly, there she was, emerging out of the stone corridor. Princess Zelda was dressed in what Link figured must have been a royal gown, trimmed blue and gold, similar to the robed men. She wore a weary expression, like the Sheikah guards had, though her eyes showed an unsubtle glint of curiosity. “Are you Link?”

Link, who had expected to see the King and therefore may have been able to deal with his presence but was undoubtedly unprepared to deal with hers, nodded uncomfortably. It was fascinating to see her blue eyes this closely. They scanned his face, and he was reminded of the memorial, when he’d been hoping beyond hope that she had been looking his way. Now she was definitely looking at him, and she seemed to be absorbing everything. Her eyes were quick, too. She offered him a small smile, and his stomach erupted in butterflies. 

“I will be watching the proceedings,” she told him softly. She couldn’t have been any older than he was, but she spoke to him gently, with an easy sense of her authority. Even so, her tone still showered him with flower petals. He nodded again. 

“Please walk forward,” said the man adorned in cream-and-gold silks. Link felt his feet moving before the man finished speaking, though he wasn’t sure why (he only told himself this. He did know why.)

Link felt numb as he took careful steps towards the Sword. Its pedestal was perfectly carved, the stone intricately layered, tiny steps for fairies with tiny feet. His mother used to tell him stories of fairies when he was little, younger than that infamous equinox holiday, when Talia had left to get lost in the snow and his mother had smiled her warm smile. She used to regale him with tales of tiny fairies, fairies that glowed bright blues and pinks and who assisted the Hero of Time on his journey. Link remembered this, his soul jolting as his eyes traveled up the blade’s perfect silver. 

Each step seemed to echo loudly across the walled garden. He suddenly felt completely alone, though he couldn’t figure out if it was a good or bad kind of isolation. The one feeling that lingered was the feeling of Princess Zelda’s gaze, burning a hole in his back. It made his mind hazy. He could smell the floral aroma from a nearby rosebush, and he clung to it, that sweet scent, hoping it could be a distraction from the dark, anticipatory feeling that was was webbing throughout his gut.

He stopped his steps, standing close to the Sword. The second his foot landed firmly on the walkway, he heard the voice again in his mind. 

_”I have waited for you.”_

_Why can I hear you so clearly?_ He thought. 

_”Hold onto the fact that you can.”_

Link heard someone speak behind him. He couldn’t register who it was. “You may attempt to pull the Master Sword.”

His hands were already reaching for it.

He could hear his father’s voice, from some time ago: _When I tried pulling the Sword, I felt powerful. I still feel that way for trying._

His uncle’s: _I dunno. I think I was just nervous, but I remember being amazed that the King had a garden like that._ Uncle Fenn didn’t tend to focus on the important things. At the time, Link hadn’t known what “garden” his uncle had been referring to. 

But his grandfather’s testimony rang in his ears, potentially the loudest: _When I statured, I felt like I had the weight of all of Hyrule on my shoulders, and that if I pulled it, I would be committing to something greater than myself._ He’d taken a pause, rocking creakily for a few moments in his chair, hovering the tip of his pipe over his lips. _But I knew the second I touched the hilt that I wasn’t meant for it. I felt nothing._

This definitely wasn’t that.

The metal polish seemed freakishly cold in his hands - that was Link’s first thought, but he was suddenly bombarded with a multitude of other thoughts. 

There was a temperature shock that shot through his body, so distracting that he could no longer smell the roses from the bushpatch, and he shut his eyes tightly, grunting, the gravity of the sword both heavy and light. He began to yank upwards, desperately, instinctively, clawing the being of the Sword further towards himself. 

There were voices in his head, screaming, shouting, whispering, and he could hear them all in a murky dark. He squeezed his eyes tighter and cried out as the Spirit of the Sword curled around his own and pulled him in. 

_“THE MASTER OF THE SWORD HAS ARISEN,“_ it said. _“THUNDERBORN.“_

Lightning crashed across the rolling tide.

Link could hardly feel himself pulling upwards, could hardly hear the footsteps, the panicked shouts, the Princess calling his name. He grit his teeth and pulled harder, drawing Fi closer to him, the feeling of tens of thousands of years passing through his soul to crash, slamming against his rib cage, pressing tight in a gasp of desperate air. 

Lightning. Thunder. Different voices. _Hero,_ they called. _Wild Soul. Born of Thunder. Hylia’s Own._

The spirit Fi. Calling to him in that gentle tone, amidst the cries of destiny. _Chanpion of the Master Sword._

Link was suspended, falling fast from is soul in the clouds. He lost consciousness as he sank into the stormy sea.


	4. Magma

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever accidentally write something so angsty that you actually start to feel sad even though you were purposely creating angst?? haha me neither

There were voices around him. Distinctly outside of his head. 

“We need to get him to the clinic.” 

“No, to his family, certainly, they’re probably expecting him—“

“He’s slowly regaining consciousness. Allow him that first.” 

For a moment Link thought that he was on the ground, but he wasn’t - as became aware of his body, he found that he was on his knees, leaning his weight against the Master Sword, with the blade buried in the grass and his hands clasped to the hilt. Link’s head was tilted, leaning against the cool steel. His eyes were closed, but he opened them slowly, and made what he hoped was an audible grunt. 

He heard a few gasps of relief, and then the Princess’s voice — “He pulled the Sword.” 

She sounded as shocked as he felt. And oh, did he feel it: the surprise, the abruptness catching up to him, rolling up his body, all the way to his head. He let out a choked noise. _Oh, goddess, I pulled the Sword..._

He was helped up off his knees, and there were murmurs of - what, even? No one seemed to know how to feel about this. “Someone alert the King,” one of them demanded, and Link heard someone’s retreating footsteps. 

There was a beat of silence before the man with the cream-and-gold robes coughed, shakily. “As has been _written_ ,” he muttered, clearly trying to reel in his own stunned expression, “we will send him home. With the Master Sword. He will be called back in one month, while we make preparations for his training, for when he lives at the castle - he’ll have an audience with the King.”

Link’s thoughts were racing fast. “I...living at the castle?” 

“Naturally, naturally,” the man said in a rush. One of the others said to Link, “You’ll be trained in preparation for the prophecy.” 

“What prophecy?” Asked Link, dazed. 

The Princess still walked forward. “You’ll come to be here and train to become the Hero of Legend, as is what’s meant to happen to the person that pulls the Master Sword.” Her voice was gentle, though her appalled expression remained. A strange contrast, one that didn’t settle well in Link’s stomach. 

“I didn’t _mean_ to pull it,” Link insisted weakly, but no one paid his statement any mind. 

“We can’t let him take it _home,_ ” one of them remarked in a flabbergasted voice. “Our documents say he lives in _Hateno Village_ , having him take the Master Sword with him will be like sending the King’s crown into the middle of the Faron jungle!” 

“If we don’t send him out with it,” said another, his eyes never leaving the Sword, “then no one will believe that he actually pulled it. There are already conspiracies of the nobility crafting stories in regards to the prophecy. The people need truth from us.” 

Link was growing increasingly uneasy, and that stone returned to his stomach. The Sword was silent now, but Link didn’t even have the energy to be angry. 

“Can you fight?” Asked the man in the cream-and-gold silks. It took Link a moment to realize he was being spoken to directly. 

He nodded, still gripping the hilt of the sword in his small hands. “I can with a knife, and a short sword.” _Like this one_. 

“Don’t fight with this, then. Not until we give you explicit permission. We will send you home, and you will keep it locked in a chest.”

Link only noticed then as he turned around that the two Sheikah guardsmen were kneeling. They were kneeling for him, the knees of their leggings growing wet in the dewy grass. It was still only morning, Link remembered. 

—:::—

Link’s memory was getting faulty.

As he lay in bed, with the entire house silent, there should have been no distractions. And there weren’t. Yet...

He rolled over, glancing through the dark over at Talia’s weakened form tucked into her own bed. She was sleeping, but it was clear that she was restless, with her breaths coming in short, shallow pants. He wondered if the sickness had affected her memory, or would in any way. Probably not. 

Link furrowed his brow. The men in the robes had led him out of the subgarden, silently through the stone corridors, just as  
they had led him in. Except the silence had been heavier, more deadly, and if anyone had spoken it would have broken glass, it seemed. The Princess had left them halfway through the twisted corridor. It was possible that she had been trying to catch his eye, but he could barely look at her, he could barely look at anyone. 

But after that... _what, then?_ He remembered being led outside, up to the iron gates, the slow crawl of shock that must have made its way through the crowd as the gates opened to reveal him holding the Master Sword. Gasps. 

He recalled the feeling of his father and uncle’s hands on his back, and a lot of loud noise, but had they been cheers or shouts? Anger...relief, maybe. Excitement almost definitely, at least from a few people. But words had been in the abstract, and still were. 

Two castle knights had escorted them back to Hateno Village, despite the fact that Link’s father and Uncle Fenn were already knights from the Order. One of them had been a woman, Link remembered, but what he couldn’t remember were any details about her or her face. Maybe it had been because he’d tried his best not to meet anyone’s eyes...maybe her mere presence had reminded him too much of Kyata. 

The four knights had talked animatedly amongst themselves the entire way back to Neculda. About the Sword, about the Princess, the King, trading versions of old legends, arguing over even older ones. Wondering what it would be like at the castle, if the entire family could live there too, what kinds of foods they could eat (at this Link’s father had tried to pull his son into the conversation, maybe to be nice, but Link found himself pointedly ignoring it). Would any of them meet the King, what Link would be doing, how he would be training, what color Link’s bedsheets would be. 

Link had held onto the Master Sword during the journey, but that didn’t stop others from wanting to touch it. Still, they must not have actually tried, or Link must have refused, because Link didn’t remember the Sword ever leaving his hands. 

Right now it was beside his bed, leaning against the wall, barely glimmering in the moon’s weak light. He’d forgotten to tell his parents that the Sword was supposed to be locked in a chest, but he doubted they would have listened. The fact that it was consistently on display seemed to have a placating effect on their anxieties - of which they certainly held a few. 

His eyes kept flickering to it, every once and a while, anticipating the voice. But the voice never spoke. It had been silent ever since it had been released from the stone. Link had known the Spirit’s name, for a moment, but now he couldn’t recall it, the name drifting throughout the back of his brain. Unreachable. 

He heard footsteps.

They were the footsteps of someone trying to be quiet. The footfalls were too uneven, the creaks of the wooden steps too stretched. It was someone coming from the downstairs level...

He knew it was his mother before she reached the top of the steps, her flowy form a murky silhouette in the moonlight. Link didn’t move, watching her as she took several careful steps in the direction of Talia’s bed. She faced Talia’s sleeping form, her hand twitching to reach out to her daughter. Link saw then that his mother was wearing her cloth mask, the same she had worn when Aunt Maya had been ill. 

She murmured something, quiet enough that Link couldn’t hear, but then she suddenly turned to look at him, and Link could see his own eyes in her face. She stood still, breathing slowly, then tilted her head at him. “You’re awake.”

Link merely nodded. He hadn’t managed to speak a word since he’d come home. 

Her eyes, as they inevitably would have, drifted towards the Sword. None of the members of the family had tried holding it, or touching it. They floated around it, morbidly worshiping it, for now. 

There was a stretch of silence. Then- “Is it heavy?” 

Link furrowed his brow at her, still laying down. _What?_

“The Sword. Is it a heavy sword? Can you hold it comfortably?”

The answer that, of course, was _yes, probably the heaviest thing I’ve ever held._ But she meant literally. He shrugged, in his head conveying a, _it’s normal._

His mother somehow seemed disappointed. She thinned her lips, in that way that she tended to do. 

She wasn’t the only one. Since he’d been home, they all had questions about the Sword, shared theories about the Sword. That all came after the silence, then the screaming, then the fights. Link hadn’t realized how much of a fire starter the Sword would be. 

Talia had no idea, still. She was barely aware of most things by the time the men had returned home, slipping in and out of fitful sleep. Apparently it was similar to how Aunt Maya’s body had reacted to the illness, last autumn, though Link didn’t remember it that way. Talia did not know, Talia was asleep, waiting to wake up and hear about how much of an embarrassment it was for Link, to be hauled to Castle Town, waiting to comfort him with _it’s okay that you didn’t pull the Sword. Imagine if you had..._ Yeah, imagine. 

“Your father says he’d like to hold the Sword tomorrow. Would that be okay with you?” His mother was asking. She was already turning, walking back down the stairs. Even if Link had wanted to speak, he wasn’t sure what he would have said. 

—:::—

What else should he have expected, then for “holding the Master Sword” to be such an event? 

Every family member, minus Talia, stood around the fire. It was the following afternoon - the Sword lay on the floor, its sharpness in contrast with the unevenly-stitched carpet. Deadly weapon on scratchy wool. 

His father was laughing, nervously giddy. Everyone was talking, stalling. They were all apprehensive, afraid, maybe. Link, who knew how terrifying the Sword could be, stood in the corner, silent, as he’d grown accustomed to being so. His father said he wanted to try holding the Sword, but he hadn’t so much as reached for it, and Link wondered, incredulously, not for the first time in his life, why _touching it_ was such a mark of honor. 

More hemming and hawing. Then, just as Link had anticipated what the outcome of this would be, his father reached for it briefly, made eye contact with his son, paused his movement, and then retracted his hand. “Ah, well. It’s Link’s now. Maybe I shouldn’t.” 

Link merely raised an eyebrow. 

Then there was sighing, cursing, muttering. No one was disappointed, exactly. They seemed frustrated, as if the Sword were some puzzle piece that they couldn’t find a place for. _I guess that’s me, I’m the place for it,_ Link thought, but he wasn’t at all happy about it. What did that even mean? 

Link walked forward and reached for the Sword, ready to pick it up off the floor and carry it back upstairs where it belonged, but then he heard a hiss from his grandfather - “Link doesn’t need to do this. One of you two should.” 

Startled at this, Link looked up to see his father and Uncle Fenn both staring at the Sword. “One of us?” Asked his uncle. 

“Surely if Link gifted the Master Sword to one of you, you could show up at the castle in his place...” Aunt Maya murmured. “He clearly doesn’t want this.” 

Now both eyebrows were raised. Link stared at Aunt Maya, keeping his position still over the carpet. 

She caught his eye. “Link, quit embarrassing yourself. Come here.” Her tone was stern, so Link straightened, walking over to her. 

“Do you want the Sword or not?” She asked. 

Link felt his stomach drop. He wasn’t sure what to say, but the plan that she proposed didn’t actually sound unreasonable. He clearly wasn’t fit for the Sword. Someone like his his father or Uncle Fenn would be much better suited than he, not even thirteen, only having engaged in combat with a few bokoblins. At least they would be happy about the sudden attention...

Link shook his head, and for the first time since arriving home, he spoke. “No, Aunt Maya.” 

She only seemed surprised at his response for a fraction of a moment, but Link still saw it in her raised brow and in her clenched jaw - she’d wanted him to say yes. She’d hoped for a fight, to defend her point against this scoundrel child. 

“Well,” his mother said, “we can talk about that. I’ll just—“ she reached for the Sword on the carpet, leaning down and outstretching her gentle hand. 

Even Link was surprised by what happened to her. There was no warning from the blade, no fundamental, instinctive abrasion. No voice spoke to Link to tell him what would happen, but as his mother’s fingers wrapped around its ancient hilt, the Sword’s entire silhouette began to burn. 

It was as if the Master Sword had been shucked in magma. Red, white-hot, the sound of screaming metal reverberated harshly throughout the room. Just as quickly as his mother gripped the hilt, she began wailing and clutching her wrist to her chest, eyes wide, in shock. Others began shouting and gasping, including Link, who instinctively cried out in sharp alarm. His mother didn’t drop the Sword, however - it remained squeezed tight in her hand. 

“I _can’t!_ I can’t _let it go!_ ” She was screaming, staring at Link with wild eyes. “HELP ME!” 

Link moved, rushing to his mother’s side, breathing unevenly, the panic in his chest swelling to unimaginable heights as his father, aunt, uncle and grandfather all yelled, dancing around him and his mother, fluttering, too afraid to touch them. 

“Help her!”

“Pull it! _Pull it away, boy!_ ”

“FUKING HELL, LINK, TAKE IT!” 

Eyes blurring, Link growled and shot his hands towards the Sword’s hilt, pulling it roughly, trying to yank it hard out of his mother’s hold. He could feel the heat within the Sword, though it didn’t seem to hurt him — despite this, the anger felt within the metal was as clear as day to him. He vaguely wished it would speak to him like it once did. 

As the Sword began to shift slightly, his mother screeched louder, her eyes, blue like his, pinning him with such intense rage that Link almost let go. 

“You pulled it once, DO IT AGAIN! _PULL IT!_ ” 

Link hated that look on his mother’s face, that insane, wounded glare. He faintly heard the hiss of smoke, and the smell of burning flesh reached his nostrils. _No, no, no, no—_

All he could see was red, and he felt like he was seeing through something deep inside of himself. Though he couldn’t hear a thing, the feeling of the spirit’s desperation was intense and painful. Tendrils of energy sprung from the blade and wrapped around the Sword, and Link could imagine it, the blasphemy of his mother holding the Champion’s blade. He could sense the emotion of fire, the sacrilege that his family had committed through their privilege, their false right to possess what wasn’t theirs. It was becoming more and more difficult to distinguish the Sword’s feelings from his own.

He pulled harder. This was different from pulling the Master Sword from the stone. It was louder, it was searing and terrifying.

Suddenly there was a loud, ripping noise, and the momentum sent Link stumbling backwards, the Master Sword gripped tightly in his hands. 

His mother, free of the weapon’s burning, crumpled to the floor. Aunt Maya and Link’s father sped to her side, holding her as she panted and weeped. 

Minutes of silence passed. His father retrieved some gauze and bandaging from a nearby cabinet and wrapped his mother’s hand. Aunt Maya’s eyes were closed - she seemed to be holding in her temper. His mother, once she was helped up, swayed in place, staring solidly at her son. Her eyes were narrowed with hate, and Link blinked tears from his eyes. _This..._

He remained dumbfounded on the carpet as his mother was escorted to bed. Aunt Maya stayed behind, waiting until her sister was settled before rounding on Link.

“How in hell’s name did that happen?!” She scolded, and Uncle Fenn stood behind her, glaring down at his nephew with his arms crossed. 

“I-I-“ Link babbled weakly, instinctively gripping the Sword tighter. 

“NO! NO!” She bellowed. “Answer me properly, no stuttering here, Link!”

“I don’t know,” Link mumbled. “I don’t know what happened, I’m sorry.”

She stepped closer, gesturing violently with her hands. “Useless boy! Useless boy. You never have any answers, do you!” 

Link was flinching back, away from her. He never particularly liked his aunt, but there was a feeling that was webbing through him at her words - certainly not anger, but it was just as poisonous, a sharp stone that tugged his soul downwards in a spiral. 

Aunt Maya was furious, her face getting redder and redder. Still, she seemed unable to say much else, and so she left, storming out the front door. The action reminded him of Talia. 

Uncle Fenn looked after his wife, then to Link, then back to the door. Shaking his head, as if trying to wrap up their non-conversation neatly that way, he walked swiftly after her. 

That left Link’s grandfather. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the wooden rail, blinking up at the ceiling. Link began to shift, about to get up, but then his grandfather spoke. “Quite the ordeal that was. I hope Jeanne is okay.” 

Link felt like he should say something. “I didn’t know the Sword would hurt her.”

His grandfather’s gaze lazily drifted toward his grandson. “Your Aunt thinks that you volunteered it to the family on purpose, I’m pretty sure. So that it would hurt someone.” His voice held no dispute of this - he said it neutrally, waiting to be challenged of it. 

Remembering his mother’s face, Link rushed to his feet. “Grandfather, I wouldn’t — I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want the _Sword_.”

“You’re angry at the family,” his grandfather stated. 

Link said nothing, his voice stuttering to a stop. 

“You don’t have to tell me that. And it’s clear why — I’d say I understand where it comes from.” His grandfather turned, beginning to walk up the stairs. He spoke over his shoulder — “It’s still odd, I’d say, that you can never answer for yourself. You've never had a voice." 

"—I was never taught to have one," Link uttered, without thinking. “I was never given a choice on what I did with my life.” 

“You sound like your sister.” 

“I—“ Link halted. Did his grandfather mean that as a bad thing? What was even happening here? 

His grandfather continued up the stairs, and the conversation was apparently over. Link stood in the center of the living room, hanging his head. He could faintly hear his father’s murmurings at his mother’s bedside, as well as the small voice of a groggy Talia - “is everything okay?” she was asking. 

“Not really, but we’ll all manage. Go back to sleep,” his grandfather said to her. Then there was more creaking as his grandfather settled into his own bed, and the house was somehow quiet for the rest of the day.


	5. Wounds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this story was originally supposed to be 4 chapters, but unfortunately I have a bit of an underestimation problem regarding how many words things end up being. Whoops. (*´∀`*)

“Go again.” 

Link was panting hard. His breath was tight, and it wasn’t at all like when he pulled the Sword. This was material, this was total shit. He couldn’t take much more of this.

He wanted to say _I don’t want to,_ but his voice was stuck in his throat. Instead he looked back over his shoulder at his father standing up the hill, with his sharp eyes and crossed arms. “Did I stutter?” His father yelled down. 

Already there were two bokoblins clambering through the trees, having heard the fall of their fellow monsters. They snorted and stumbled to where Link stood, eyeing him wildly. 

He’d already taken down seven bokoblins in these woods. The Master Sword was streaked with monster blood, dark and odious, slimy. 

“Go!” His father shouted. 

Gritting his teeth, Link sped forward and began to slash. He landed a solid gash in both of their chests before he spun past them, pivoting on his heel, and stabbing one of them in the neck. With a screech, the monster crumbled into an acrid purple cloud of dust. 

It’s companion, injured, whirled to face Link and timed it with a swing of its club. Link dodged, slipping to the left. 

“Faster! The battlefield won’t have this kind of patience!” 

_What PATIENCE?_ Link’s mind snarled, but still, his anger was easy fuel. Jumping forward, he caught the bokoblin with his knees, grunting as he drove the Sword into its chest. There was a choked squeal, and then all that was beneath him was ash - the only remnant of his adversary. 

This wasn’t the first time he’d fought bokoblins. Back when he was training with his knife, and even when he’d moved on to training with a short sword, his father would lure a single bokoblin away from its pack with some honey on a stick. Link was then positioned to take it down - maybe killing should have given him pause, but even as a child, he could sense the lack of life within them. They were easy kills. 

There was a high-pitched growl, emanating from deeper within the trees. The hair on the back of Link’s neck stood on end - the danger was larger there, through the woods. 

“You heard that?” His father called. 

_”Yes,”_ Link shot back, steadying himself into position, waiting. 

He heard his father’s scoff. “Don’t wait for it! Go!” 

Link could sense that the monster, whatever it may be, was already making its way towards him. Link didn’t want to move towards it. He could sense the danger of it, in the length of its strides and the depths of its growl. 

This training was taking place early in the morning, too, and Link didn’t have the sunlight to guide his eyes to the threat. He could see the approaching silhouette, however - lanky and looming. 

Maybe gaining an element of surprise would be best for this. He didn’t have that, currently, but he could induce it. Swiftly, he sheathed the Master Sword and leapt to the right, beginning to climb one of the large maple trees. 

“What are you _doing?_ ” 

Link ignored him and continued to climb, trying to move faster and more nimbly as the monster made its way through the bushes. Just as he reached on of the mid-teer branches, he saw it: a moblin, darker than the ones he’d seen before. He had only fought a moblin once, but that was over a year ago. His father had helped him with it, and they’d taken it down together. _There ya go,_ he’d said, as Link had inflicted the final strike. _That’s my boy!_

This one was stronger, more vicious, and his father was silent now, though he could feel his eyes on his back. 

The monster paused its movements, noticing the mounds of ash that were once bokoblins. If Link had to guess, this moblin was the leader of their tribe. It snorted, then began sniffing the air, trying to locate the enemy. 

Link’s body ached, but he knew he only had seconds before he was spotted. He had to move _now._

Grunting, he pushed with his legs, jumping from the tree with a less-than-ideal level of grace. As he fell, he unsheathed the Sword, something he wasn’t aware he could do, and came down hard onto the moblin’s shoulders, driving the blade deep into its flesh. 

The monster screeched and immediately threw up its claws, trying to hack Link off of its back. Startled, Link fell to the dirt, coughing and gasping as the air was knocked out of him. Looking up he could see the Master Sword clearly still embedded within the moblin’s shoulder blades. He predicted his father’s words just before they were shouted down: “The Sword! _Get the Sword!”_

 _Maybe I can throw it off balance._ Unsheathing his knife, able to feel the carved cursive in its wooden hilt, he dashed towards the monster and slid to his knees, slashing at its ankles. 

More snorts and snarls. The moblin stumbled, briefly falling to one knee, pulling its fist back and swinging towards Link. He managed to dodge the punch, just barely, springing up to his feet and whirling around the squatted monster to grab the Sword from its back. He wrapped his hands around the hilt and pulled, wondering not for the first time if _pulling the Sword_ would kill him one day. 

There was a tearing noise as he ripped the Sword upwards, and the moblin roared, spinning, and suddenly— 

“AUGH!” Link stumbled backwards, gasping, staring down in awe at the claw wound in his chest. It had torn through his cotton shirt, creating a not-very-shallow claw cut across his front. It stung and burned, leaving Link reeling as the blood began to seep into the surrounding fabric. 

“Take it out!”

His father’s words rang in his head, and Link felt his feet sprint forward. A blink, then— 

_”skreeeeek!”_

Link gasped, then looked away, shocked at what he had somehow done - he had stabbed the Sword through the moblin’s throat, the tip of the blade peeking through the top of its skull in a jagged uppercut. 

What had definitely been the strongest monster Link had ever fought one minute was now marred, rotten ash the next. Link stared at its remains as the Sword was freed from what was once a brain, acrid flesh crumbling to dust around the blade. 

“Get back up here,” his father called from the top of the hill. 

Link sighed and stood, numbly trudging out of the patch of forest and up the hill towards the Hateno archway. His chest was throbbing, the bleeding slowing but still hurting just as sharply. His father walked over to meet him, his movements swift. 

“What was that?” His father asked. Link didn’t like his tone - it was too soft, too sarcastic, not angry enough. “You could have taken both of those monsters out with two slashes at most. And those first three - one at a time, seriously?” 

Link thinned his lips, like his mother would’ve done. 

“The _moblin_. I can’t believe you took it on the way you did. What the hell did climbing a godsdamned tree accomplish for you, Link? You left the Sword, the _Master Sword_ just in its back! You were even careless enough to be in its range, and you—“ His father looked down at the wound on his son’s chest and narrowed his eyes, as if offended. “You were sloppy this morning.”

Link couldn’t answer any of that in a way that would be satisfying to his father - _I was too afraid to approach it head-on_ would have been the opposite of acceptable. Memories flashed through Link’s mind each time he blinked, the lifeless eyes of the moblin hunting him with its instinct. 

“Answer me. You’re not an idiot.” 

Link swallowed. “...I don’t know.” He winced as he spoke, his chest rising and falling. Medical attention was definitely needed, could they go home now?

“You don’t know.” 

“I’ll be faster next—“ 

“No. No ‘next’. You shouldn’t need to be told to be efficient with that blade.” 

Link wondered if he should speak freely, before he realized his father would only stop him. He’d tried, many times, to tell him that he wasn’t allowed to use the Sword, that the councilmen had specifically told him not to wield it until he was given permission by the court. 

“Oh, what’ll they do, spank you for being a bad kid?” His father had growled. “The Master Sword is meant to kill.” 

“It’s a holy object,” Link had murmured. He’d gotten better at speaking to his family, but he never felt confident in what he had to say. “I don’t think...maybe I can practice with a short sword? A regular one?” 

Oh, no, his father had reprimanded him. He, Link, was on a different level now. Clearly. He wasn’t _meant_ to use a normal sword. The Master Sword was _obviously_ what he was destined for. 

Now, he shut his eyes, blocking out the image of his father’s disappointment. Link knew why he’d insisted on further training - at least, he thought he knew. There could have been a few reasons. Maybe his family didn’t want Link embarrassing them as the new Champion. Maybe they wanted to see him put the curse of the blade to good use. No one seemed to revel in its glory anymore. 

—:::—

“You- oh, my gods. _Link._ ”

Link nodded. He held the Sword in his lap, pathetically, as though presenting a gift he wasn’t proud of. “Talia...”

Her eyes were wide. She was sitting up, her back against the headboard, knees pulled to her chest. Only recently had she become strong enough to speak and move to sit up. Her eyes were frantic, flying everywhere, from her brother’s face, to his bandaged chest, to the Master Sword, held timidly in front of her. 

With saddened eyes she reached forward and put her hand on his knee. “Link...how? How did you do it?” She didn’t sound angry. 

Link felt inclined to tell her, but explaining it to everyone had been so _hard._ It wasn’t as if the rest of the family hadn’t already asked. And yelled. And shunned each other. So many emotions had exploded because of the Master Sword, and all Link wanted to do was throw the Sword off the cliffs near the village. Maybe if he was lucky it would bury itself in the sand below, and no one would find it for a thousand years. 

He hung his head. “I still don’t know. I’m sorry.” 

Talia attempted to say something, but she was overtaken by a harsh cough. Link snapped his head up to watch her. How severe was the illness already? Autumn was not kind. Instinctively, he readjusted his face mask. 

She was calm after a few seconds. “It’s okay,” she muttered. “I’ve heard them.” She nodded her head toward the steps — “You don’t need to be sorry. They should be.” 

Link wasn’t sure how much Talia actually may have heard. She didn’t seem to have woken up when their mother was burned, when her screams rang throughout the house. “I’m sad we can’t bake anymore, for what it’s worth,” Link said. 

Talia smiled, very faintly. “Me too. I’ve had only broth for weeks now - luckily Aunt Maya’s been making it, so it’s at least palatable.” 

“Right.”

There was a moment of quiet before Talia said, “I...never could have imagined—“

Link shook his head. “Neither could I. Ever.”

—:::—

The family received a letter a few days after that. It was written with very black ink on thick, cream-colored paper, and it was sealed with golden wax. 

Link’s Uncle had been the one to open it, despite it being addressed to Link. 

“A reminder to arrive at the castle in two weeks time.” 

Link nodded. 

His grandfather sighed. 

—:::—

Talia’s condition grew worse over the next week. 

She lay in bed, coughing, breathing shallowly. She ate her food still, although her body seemed to not want to absorb it, and she grew thinner with the passing days. Their mother was by her bedside most often, though Link tried to take care of her whenever he wasn’t being drilled. He would sit with her, and he brought her apples to eat, knowing she would want them. She did, in fact, but she couldn’t eat a whole apple at a time, her jaw unable to take the strain. 

The news of deaths began floating in again, just like the previous fall. Evidently, Hateno wasn’t the only village the harbored this wandering sickness - there were a few outbreaks in Central Hyrule, and rumors flew of it invading Castle Town. Link found himself wondering about the Princess. Was she thinking about him too? Maybe. He should have spoken to her that day. 

One evening he sat by Talia’s bed, holding a cool washcloth over her forehead, as her fever had been growing more intense. Downstairs, their grandfather and aunt sat by the fire. They must have thought that Link was out practicing, because their conversation was plenty loud enough for he and his sister to hear upstairs. 

“The audacity of that boy,” Aunt Maya said. “He barely speaks now.” 

“He was always a quiet child,” came his grandfather’s low, rumbling tone. 

“Who cares? Now is the worst possible time for that nonsense.” 

“The Sword chose him regardless. He can’t just give it to Fenn or Marco. Destiny dictates otherwise.” 

Talia and Link made eye contact with each other. She furrowed her brow. 

“Mom tried to hold it. It burned her,” Link whispered. 

Talia’s eyes went wide. 

Downstairs, there was silence for a moment, then his aunt said, “Link should never have been the one. This wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t gone to Castle Town to stature.” 

Link felt a spike of anger at her words, as she made it sound as though he had wanted it all along. Talia seemed to be thinking the same thing, shaking her head and sighing an inaudible sigh. 

“That doesn’t matter. The plan was for him to stature, then to have that attempt on his sheet when he was tested to join the Order.”

“I know full well what the plan was,” their aunt scoffed. “He’s not even grateful. He landed himself with a Hero’s position and he hasn’t shown even a hint of gratitude for all that we’ve done to train him, to get him to where he is—“ 

“ _You_ never trained him, certainly,” said their grandfather, his tone light. 

Then there were footsteps, and Aunt Maya had stomped out of the house. She did that a lot lately. Link could hear the creaking of the rocking chair as his grandfather resumed nursing his pipe. 

“Link.”

Talia was very quiet, but nonetheless Link turned and gave her his full attention. She looked incredibly troubled. “When you were little...definitely smaller than when you received your first knife...you got injured. With a sword.” 

He blinked at her. “What?”

Talia heaved a cough, and Link reached to hold her shoulder. “Don’t talk. Keep your strength.” 

“It’s...okay. It’s okay.” She took shallow breaths, seemingly trying to get her voice even. “Dad kept...swords everywhere when you were little. On the walls, like decoration.” 

“Okay.”

She closed her eyes and continued speaking, shakily. “You were running somewhere, excited about something, but you tripped. You reached out your hand, trying to steady yourself, and you cut your hand open on one of the swords on the wall.” 

Link was silent. He had always had a very faint scar there, on his right palm, but he’d never thought to ask about it. 

Talia shook her head. “They...they thought it meant something. That you would instinctively reach for a sword if you were in danger. They used it as an excuse, I think. To build you up the way that they did.”

Link looked down curiously at the palm of his hand. The scar was barely noticeable, but it was still there, a part of him regardless of the time that had passed. 

Talia was shaking a little more violently, so Link took the washcloth off of her head to dip it into the basin and refresh it. Wringing it out, he gave it to her, unsure if she was going to continue. 

She accepted the towel and held it to her head. “Grandfather said, I think it was as a joke, that maybe it was a sign that you should never be involved in conflict. I mean, you were—“ she cleared her throat. “You were just... _wailing_ , it clearly hurt you a lot, but no one was focused on how much pain you were in. They held on to that action of you grabbing the sword on the wall. Destiny and all that shit.

“Still, the entire family, including me, yes, we...we just ignored that interpretation. It was already assumed that you would grow up to become a knight.”

Downstairs, the sound of their grandfather’s snoring began floating throughout the house. 

“Link...as I’ve watched you grow up, I just...” she stopped to catch her breath. “Be careful. Please be careful. I never want you to forget yourself as the Hero. To lose who you are.” 

“I won’t,” he immediately replied. 

She smiled that small smile. It was similar to their mother’s warm smile, but it was more knowing in a way that Link couldn’t explain. “You’ll never mean to do it. No one ever means to get lost.” 

—:::—

The Master Sword was leaned against the tree. 

Link sat in the grass across from it, trying to remain still and observe its every edge. 

He tried to draw the spirit out again. “Will you speak to me?” He asked the Sword in a quiet voice. 

No response from the Sword. 

_Have I imagined everything?_

He definitely couldn’t argue that. Even if the voices that he’d heard in his head hadn’t been real, the burn on his mother’s hand was. Her hubris had webbed into a stretched scar across her palm. She still wore a bandage from time-to-time, when holding things became too painful. 

Link had also managed to pull the Sword in the first place, an act that somehow, some way, no one else had managed to achieve. 

It was a cloudy day. The autumn wind flew past his face in even streaks. 

He wished he could feel something. He felt apprehensive, constantly, but was that the magic, the ancient evils within the history of that weapon, or was it his own anxiety? 

The Sword still did not speak to him. He almost wanted to argue with it, to channel his frustrations into a place other than combat. He didn’t want fighting to be the only option left.


	6. Bound

Talia passed away two days before they left for Castle Town. 

At that point, she had barely been speaking, but Link had still been able to watch her, and she him. The two of them sat in silence, her breathing becoming more and more spaced out and shallow. He’d held her hand and squeezed it for reassurance, and she squeezed back, faintly, her strength slowly leaving her. 

There were moments leading up to that dreadful hour where her gazes seemed to mean something. She would look him in the eye, and then she would glance to the Sword. She was never hazy with him. _Be careful,_ those eyes said. 

It was that night that she fell asleep and never woke up. That was how they’d heard Naki’s mother had passed away, ages ago it seemed to be now. 

Link found himself thinking back to the funeral from last autumn, when the village had mourned the deaths of eleven people, and the mass funeral that had been held for those lost. Many had murmured, many had politely listened, and the village had moved on in the way that it always did. But how could that happen now?

Time seemed to stop upon Talia’s death, and despite the ticking clock Link felt static, unable to move forward. The family buried her body by the pond, under the enormous oak tree. His mother and father were crying, she mumbling something about how she couldn’t hold her daughter with her burnt hand and he holding her close and soothing her hair as he blinked away tears. 

Aunt Maya was silent during the burial and all throughout the day, though it seemed to be less from a state of mourning and more from a lack of anything to say. Uncle Fenn began drinking early in the morning and managed to drink until nightfall, when he passed out in the corner of the living room. Link’s grandfather cried on and off and sat with Link’s parents, taking longer drags from his pipe and occasionally drinking old whiskey with Fenn. The family went to bed after hours of sobbing and rhetorical questioning. Link fell asleep so easily that night that he wondered if all of this was a dream. 

Oh, but it wasn’t. He woke blearily, instinctively lolling his head to the right to glance at Talia’s bed, already mentally planning the steps to wake up and refresh her washcloth. 

But she wasn’t in her bed. Link‘s eyes went wide as a choked cry escaped him, memories flooding back of her strained voice, her pale face, her weakening grip. He could no longer feel her hand in his. No reassuring squeezes.

Link felt his feet move, his breaths escaping in a rush as he whirled out of bed and sped down the steps. _This was impossible._

He threw the front door open, and his eyes landed on the pile of dirt beneath the tree. She was under there. 

He stormed to her grave, furious, kicking up dirt as he went. Looming over her burial mound, he hissed, snarling down at her death and the fact of it. There was too much he wanted to say, _needed_ to say, but there was nothing in his voice. He scrunched his eyes shut, the multitude of thoughts crashing around in his skull beginning to overwhelm him. 

_You left,_ his mind accused, and his eyes sharpened, nailing her spirit into the ground, as if he could. _What am I going to do, how am I going to do it? You always knew what to do!_

He sank to his knees, dizzy. 

_What the fuck is wrong with you, with me?_

_They don’t want me here. You wanted me! You kept me happy. You made me happy. Why didn’t you last? Why were you so WEAK?_

Link couldn’t breathe. Tears began to freely roll down his cheeks as strangled whimpers spilled from his lips. 

_I burned her. I burned her!_

_Why did we never leave? We hated it here!_

_Let’s go,_ he wanted to plead, _Stand up and let’s run away together. Let’s go live in the forest where there’ll be apples to eat, honey to harvest, let’s go buy a cooking pot—_

Link dug his fingers into the grass. He could feel his anger beginning to boil over. Why did she have to die? Why did her illness seem to drag on as slow as it did? Why couldn’t she have lived to come with him to Castle Town, where they could have bought more ingredients for different experiments...why did she not prepare him better? Why did he never brace himself? How dare she leave! Why couldn’t Aunt Maya have died instead, last year, why did Talia have to leave him like this? So soon? Right when his life had grown to become the worst it had ever been...

—:::—

Of course, Link had already begun a habit of pacing.

At first he walked around the length of the pond, but that had been while Talia was still alive, and it had eased his anxieties some, but not enough. After she was buried, he took laps around the house, but it was too easy to cry there. So he left. 

He walked throughout the village by himself, not looking at anyone and letting his feet take him wherever they may. Thankfully the news that Link’s family held the Master Sword was news that hadn’t yet reached Hateno, so no one gave him a passing glance as he paced through the main walkways. 

He made his way up the cliffhill, past the farmhouses and windmills, further along, past the pastures of cows and sheep, homes with their lights on as the afternoon sun began to sink and the sky bloomed lavender. Houses with families, together still. 

He wound up at the top of the cliff, the path accompanied by an old wooden sign. “Unsafe Beyond This Point”, it read, but that was for children, and Link was no longer a child. 

As night fell, the air grew colder. Link didn’t remember moving to do so, but he found himself sitting at the edge of the cliff, staring down at the ocean hundreds of feet below. The waves crashed against the sand and rock, and he was reminded of the unyielding force that his soul felt when he drew the Master Sword. Where was that instinct now?

He supposed that even if he hadn’t pulled the Sword, Talia would still be dead. He’d connected the two events in his head, but what right did he have to do that? He pulled his knees to his chest, curling into himself, and he felt like a child again - but at least he’d had Talia when he’d been that young. He didn’t have her now, and he wouldn’t, ever again. 

There was still dirt on his hands and under his fingernails from earlier. By the time autumn fell in five years time Talia would become one with the soil....who knew where Link would be in five years...still preparing for the Calamity, maybe, whatever that meant. Will the Calamity have already happened by then? That prospect was even worse. 

He’d left the Sword at home. Should he have done that? _I guess nothing will happen to it if no one can touch it,_ he thought. Maybe if he hadn’t allowed his mother to hold the Sword she would have been able to hold her daughter before she died.

Link was breathing shallowly, beginning to bite his nails. A _whuff_ of cold air streamed by his face. He realized that he couldn’t deny his mother’s parental instinct. As much as he wanted to assume by now that his mother was just complaining about her hand to draw more attention to herself, he didn’t truly believe that. A mother losing a child...he thought back to the woman who must have been Kyata’s mother, at the funeral last autumn. Kyata had perhaps been ten years older than Talia, maybe a little younger. But both of them were grown women. A mother losing a daughter was a different shape of grief that Link couldn’t comprehend. 

There were instances of death throughout his life that he had always been just outside of. His grandmother’s death, when he had been too little to remember her. Kyata’s death, the deaths of townspeople. The death of the Queen. He remembered Princess Zelda, with her mourning prayers. He knew every line of that prayer now, although the memorial only happened once a year. He blinked tears out of his eyes, and they fell to his wrist. He bit into the skin to muffle the scream that suddenly burst from his throat, barely registering the salty taste. There was another streak of frigid wind, and Link shivered and curled into himself tighter. 

“Link?”

That definitely wasn’t a voice he recognized. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a young woman with braided auburn hair walking towards him. She was well-bundled, prepared for the cold, but she held a blanket in her arms. After a few beats, Link remembered her to be Naki, Talia’s friend from the village. She was looking at him with obvious concern, though her face was very tired. 

It was getting dark. Link had been staring down to the ocean for so long that it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the new values at the top of the cliff - he saw the outline of a horse, stationed a few meters down the path. How did he not hear them approaching?

Naki continued towards him, but stopped several feet away. “Hey. Been a while, yeah? There’s no way you could have been older than six, the last time I saw you.” Her voice held the same sardonic cadence that Talia’s once had, though her tone was more girlish and silvery in a strange way. 

Link nodded dully, unsure of what to say. 

She cautiously held out a blanket. “I stopped by the house; no one knew where you were.” 

_Then how did you find me?_ he wanted to ask, but he didn’t. Instead he stretched and stood, shakily taking the wool blanket from Naki’s hands and wrapping it around himself. He was immediately thankful for the warmth. 

Naki reached out to put her hand on his shoulder, and he waited for a moment before letting her. “It’s nearly eight o’clock, I figure I should take you home.” 

They walked together back towards her horse. It was a bit bigger than Link was used to, but she helped him up, and that’s when Link realized how tired he truly was. He sat in front, though her slender arms reached around him and held the reins. They began _click-clacking_ away at a slow pace, and Naki looked back up towards the peak of the cliff. 

“Talia used to wind her way up here when she was upset,” Naki whispered. “I never visited your house, she never liked being at home, so whenever I wanted to find her I usually tried up here first. A long walk, I’ll say.” Her voice was suddenly very shaky. “I wondered if...if you might be up here, too.” 

Link didn’t know that about his sister. He knew very little about Naki herself, as well was the nature her friendship with Talia. Did she cook with Naki too?

Link blinked rapidly, trying to erase the sudden anger that spiked in his chest. 

They rode down the hill, back towards the village. It was no longer dusk; night had completely fallen. Tomorrow Link’s family would escort him to Castle Town, and he would be admitted as the Champion...he still didn’t know what that meant. He wondered if Talia knew what it meant. 

Maybe with Talia dead he wouldn’t miss home as much. In the village it wasn’t common for people to move away, but Talia hated it here, especially living with the family. Looking back, Link had no idea what Talia had wanted out of her life. He felt bad about that, because he, conversely, never had a choice to begin with if fate was to be taken seriously. 

Still, the thought of asking Naki about it seemed off-putting, so he said nothing. 

She dropped him off at the end of the bridge, telling him to keep the blanket. “It was actually your sister’s,” she told him, guiding the horse in the direction of the village. “It was kept at my house for whenever she stayed over.”

Link took the blanket gratefully and dismounted on his own, wondering how Naki was able to speak so clearly, to reflect on Talia without bursting into tears. He was jealous of how calm she seemed to be. He felt his own tears, streaming down his face in tiny droplets. 

Though, as she rode down the hill away from him, he could see that shakiness return to her shoulders. Perhaps the facade of it wasn’t crystal clean. 

—:::—

“Talia?” 

Link snapped awake at the sound of her name. It had come from downstairs - voices were whispering now. He groggily sat up in bed, straining his ears to listen. 

“No,” came his father’s voice. “Jeanne—“ 

He heard footsteps, someone stepping out of bed. “No, I...I saw her, she...”

Link’s heart wrenched violently at the sound of his mother’s voice, heavy and sleep-stitched and sad. 

His father’s sigh wasn’t very loud, but Link heard it. “No, Jeanne, you didn’t. It’s okay. Come back to bed.” 

“I heard her _voice,_ Marco, I...”

His mother began to cry, and Link closed his eyes, hoping desperately to fall back asleep. He managed it surprisingly easily. 

—:::—

Outside the gates of Castle Town, people were already waiting for them. 

Link would have taken the stature crowd any day compared to this - several hundred people eagerly stood, lining the path, clapping and cheering as the family approached on horseback. They began to whistle, calling out his name - except it wasn’t his name, because they didn’t know his name. 

“Hylia’s Champion!” 

“Hero! Hero!”

“Praise to the wielder of the Master Sword!” 

Link noticed a man that stood out amongst the crowd - he was older than most of the folk around him, with long, fraying hair and a green robe with wooden jewelry hanging from his ears, neck and wrists. He looked pleased to see Link, though he wasn’t cheering. Instead, he gave Link a satisfied smile, the kind given to a puzzle piece after it fits into its final composition. 

To his mild surprise, Link’s father suddenly noticed the same man. He smiled and waved with a knowing glance, then pointed at Link and grinned wider. That’s when it clicked for Link - he was a dragon monk.

Instinctively Link reached for the knife at his hip. He’d decided to take it with him to the castle, as a backup weapon at least. He kept one hand on the reins of his horse, tracing the carved cursive in the knife’s hilt with the other. _Thunderborn_. He wished he knew what it really meant. 

They stayed in an inn that night, splitting the family between two rooms. In the nature of last year, a few adults went downstairs to the bar to celebrate, although his mother stayed with him in their room, reading a book at the small desk while Link practiced forms with his knife. 

The two of them were silent for a while. Link noted the book his mother was reading - _A Tale: The Hero of Winds_. He knew vaguely of that Hero - very vaguely. His mother told him stories when he was little, fairytales, of a Hyrule that was completely flooded by...

His mother looked up at him, paused in her reading. “Do you ever feel...as though you’re drowning, in an ocean, Link?” 

Link nearly dropped his knife, quickly stumbling to cease his pivots and thrusts. He blinked at her for a moment before tilting his head. The answer was _yes, I do,_ but what good was that? Why did she care? 

At his non-response, she stood, walking over to her satchel before bending down to rummage inside. “I want you to have some things.” 

With her good hand, his mother pulled out two books: the first was the cooking notebook, the one that Talia had used to keep track of their cooking experiments. The other appeared to be a small, leather-bound journal. She strode over and handed them to Link, who gingerly accepted. 

Her voice took on an impending tremble. “These were Talia’s,” she said softly. “That there is a collection of cooking records - I figure that they’re rightfully yours, now.” 

Link bit his lip, turning the notebook over in his hands. This was his and Talia’s relationship, in the form of a cookbook - he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about it. 

His mother heaved a sigh. “The other is Talia’s diary.” 

At Link’s wide eyes, she rushed, “I didn’t know either. She must have kept it a secret. I- we- we found it amongst her things.” 

Link shot her a look. 

His mother seemed to read his mind. “No, I didn’t read it. I couldn’t bear that, Link, I...Maya, she did read the diary. It made her pretty angry.” 

That confused Link, but he guessed he shouldn’t have been too surprised - Talia and Aunt Maya always seemed to really dislike each other. Who knew what kind of colorful language painted these pages...

His mother was quiet then, and she seemed to shut down altogether, ending their conversation abruptly by dismissing herself to the bathhouse out back. Link continued to stand still, diary in one hand, cook book in the other. After a minute he shoved both of them into his pack, wondering if he would ever read either of them. He couldn’t handle that, not now. 

—:::—

“My councilmen will send you on your way with all the necessary rupees.” The King’s voice was as grand as his title required it to be, stretching all throughout the entrance hall despite only needing to address the family in front of him. He nodded once. “The kingdom thanks you for leaving your son in our care.” 

“Thank you, your Majesty,” Link’s father stated firmly. He and Fenn were knelt down on one knee, eyes to the floor, the official knightly stance, expected of them even while technically off-duty. His grandfather, a retired knight, stood behind them both with his hands clasped in front - an acknowledgement of past service. His mother and aunt stood by their husband’s sides. This entire formation had been laid out for them by Link’s grandfather, who remembered the appropriate postures from his years serving in the Knight’s Order. Link stood in front of his family, trying to stand as straight as possible and not allow his gaze to flicker around the room. He felt as though half of Hateno Village could fit within the Great Hall, and despite all of the noble decorations the ceiling felt higher than the sky. 

His family was escorted out. Link’s mother gave him a quick hug as she left - caught off-guard, Link awkwardly returned it. He didn’t watch his family go, choosing to completely face the King. He heard the enormous doors close behind him, and they were gone. He was alone. 

As Link’s grandfather had instructed, Link knelt to the King, fist to the ground, head bowed. To his surprise, however, the King huffed out what may have been a laugh. “At ease, Link.” 

As Link carefully stood back up, he heard one of the doors to the side of the hall open - Princess Zelda walked through the entryway, escorted by several councilmen in their blue robes. She smiled at him, and Link felt a flowery feeling bloom in his chest. She was very pretty in her royal gown, just as he remembered her from a month ago. Link hadn’t felt as bright of a feeling in a long time - it seemed to pierce through the mists of grief. 

The King spoke. “There will be an official ceremony, celebrating the both of you.” 

Both of them grew pink, and Link could see in her face that she was realizing the same thing as he: this was real now, this future that they had been facing. Link looked down at the floor. There was so much mystery around her still. She had always been a figure of importance, was she still not used to it? Would Link ever get used to it?

“Still,” the King continued, “I wanted you two to get acquainted before that.” 

As if on cue, the Princess looked up at Link and smiled again. “It’s a pleasure to meet you properly,” she said in a very practiced voice. Link was suddenly aware of how many eyes were upon them: the guards at the doors, the knights lining the the walls, the councilmen. The King. This already seemed to be a bit of a ceremony.

Link knew he should to say something. He’d barely spoken a word since Talia’s death, but he owed the Princess an introduction, at the very least. Pulling forth the necessary energy, he offered her a small smile. It was easier than he thought it would be - her smile helped to soothe him. He barely felt the weight of the Sword on his back when he spoke - “It’s nice to meet you too, Princess,” he said softly, his voice a bit scratchy from lack of use. He tried to make up for it with a clumsy bow. Princess Zelda seemed to find this charming, and she grinned wider, though she did so while maintaining her air of royalty. 

There was a round of clapping from those in the hall. _Everything with the King is a ceremony, then._

Link was then led to his quarters, parting from the Princess, who excused herself on her way do “complete her prayers”. Traversing throughout the castle was a far different experience compared to being led through the dank quarters that had led to the subgarden. Banners adorned the walls, rich, red carpets lined the floors, and there were more hanging lights than Link had ever seen. Tall, looming windows allowed streaks of sunlight to brighten the hallways, highlighting jeweled statues and golden drapes. It was too much for Link, who suddenly felt very underprepared. 

Luckily, the tone of things dialed down as the guard that led Link directed him towards a set of descending steps. “The solder’s quarters are this way. You’ll have a room down here.” 

Link nodded before following the guard. They didn’t need to go much further down - a secondary hallway veered them off to the left, and the guard pointed him towards a wooden door. “Clothes and other comfort items are already in there for you. You’ll be summoned for dinner shortly.” 

“Thank you,” Link said quietly, and the guard left. 

It was a small space. A bed with a stitched blanket, a small dresser, a desk, and a rug in the middle of the floor. A small chandelier hung from the ceiling, illuminating everything, including a banner that hung on the wall near the desk - the Hyrulian crest, the same symbol that had been stamped onto his letter, weeks ago. 

Still, this was more space than Link had ever had to himself. He was suddenly relieved, walking over to the bed and setting his large satchel down and unequipping the Master Sword. He leaned the weapon against the wall before sitting on the cozy mattress. 

He was alone. 

The silence of the room was strange to Link. Nothing was expected of him in here, no parents to lord over him and direct his life...no sister that was needed to let him be free. He could simply _exist_ here, and Link felt the weight of it, that in-between simplicity that the room now provided him with. 

His eyes rose to the banner that hung on the opposite wall - there it was, his new identity, laid out clearly for the first time. _The Champion_. He was tied to that title. Forever he would be. 

Forever would be a long time. If all of this was really happening - not for the first time, Link examined his hands, running his thumb along the scar on his right palm - yes, this _was_ real - then he wasn’t the first. He was simply the next, an addition to the Heroes that had already come and gone. 

His eyes fell back down, drifting towards his satchel. The books his mother gave him were still at the bottom. Heaving the bag up onto the bed, Link took out the few belongings he’d brought with him - Talia’s old blanket, some clothes, two apples he’d picked from a tree in Hyrule Field, a box containing blue earrings given to him by his father - and reached for the two books, taking them out and studying their plain and unassuming covers. 

Too many emotions existed within them. He would not read them today, he decided with finality, standing and walking over to the desk. There were two drawers, stapled with bronze knobs. Pulling open the one on the right, he saw that there were already two books laid inside - the first he recognized instantly: _A Story of the Great Calamity, and the Ancient Hero Who Conquered It_. It was a large volume, and it was the same edition that his family owned. Curious, he pushed it aside with his index finger to examine what was underneath it - an even thicker book, titled, _A Collection of Prayers, Rites, and Rituals: Hylia, Din, Nayru, and Farore._

_Devotions_. Link shook his head, sliding the drawer shut and opening the one on the left. Blissfully empty. 

He gently put Talia’s books inside and shut the drawer, storing the feeling of heavy grief away. He closed the door on that part of his life as the wood slid into place. To deal with at a later date. 

He stepped back, eyes shifting between the two drawers. Past and present, separated but contained. 

_No one ever means to get lost._ Talia’s voice, ringing clear. 

“Commit yourself fully,” he stated plainly. The sentiment that the men in his family held strong. Hearing his own voice seemed to cement the notion. 

Link spun on his heel, strode back to his pile of belongings, took one of the apples and bit into it, hard. The tart sweetness exploded onto his tongue, and he wondered if Talia could taste what he could taste, wherever she was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t thank you guys enough for reading. This was a lot for me to take on, with a lot happening in my life, and the support I’ve gotten from the friends I’ve made in this fandom has been pretty gratifying. Thanks also to my s/o for encouraging this story to its finish!
> 
> Will I continue writing for this AU? (“AU” in big quotes)? Maybe. Continuing to analyze how Link comes to feel about Zelda would certainly be something. There’s also a lot about Talia that I never got to get into, but that’s, like, my own original character, and nobody’s got time for that sis
> 
> Anyways. Thanks for your time! *tips hat* g’night

**Author's Note:**

> If you’d like to see more of my writing (or my lovely self in general), [peep my Tumblr @kittmoon.](https://kittmoon.tumblr.com/)


End file.
